Rick Minter's OBSERVATIONS
Some key storylines this week as the Cup Series heads to Texas: Kenseth down ... for now

HORNISH

Matt Kenseth's demeanor and his comments at the racetrack don't appear to mesh with the numbers he's run up recently.

The Nextel Cup points leader talked like he had graded himself a failure as a driver after the Bass Pro Shops 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, even though he finished fourth with the pressure of the points race bearing down on him.

"I drove terrible all weekend," he said, which sounded odd coming from a driver who already has won one Cup title in 2003 and has 14 career Cup victories, four this season.

Still, there were some hints of optimism in his voice.

"We at least could come close to running with them [Sunday]," he said. "If we can fine-tune on that a little bit for the next few weeks, I think we'll be able to run with [Jimmie Johnson] and those guys. That feels good because I feel like other people's troubles have kind of put us in the points lead."

But Kenseth, often overlooked in track-side debates over who will win the title this year, has been consistently strong in his playoff run. In the seven Chase races so far this year, he has two fourth-place finishes, two 10ths, an 11th, a 14th and a run of 23rd at Kansas City, his worst. One of those 10ths was at Dover, where he led a race-high 215 laps before running out of fuel at the end while running second to race winner Jeff Burton.

Another championship for Stewart

Tony Stewart's third-place finish in last Saturday's season finale of the Crown Royal IROC championship series gave him enough points to win the season title and its $1 million payoff. More important, it added another page to his résumé that increasingly shows him to be one of racing's most versatile drivers of all time. He added another accomplishment the next day when he won the Bass Pro Shops 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

His IROC title marks the sixth major series in which he has won a championship. He also has titles in the Nextel Cup Series, Indy Racing League and three USAC divisions.

"It's just such a great honor to even be invited to this series, let alone to win it. It's awesome," he said. "To know that my heroes - Mark Martin, A.J. Foyt, - have won this and all the other champions that have won this title, it's awesome to have this honor.

"It's not a championship where you're racing 42 other guys every week, but when you're racing 12 other champions from other series - there's a reason they've won their championships - to be the guy that wins this four-race series, it's incredible."

Stewart said what he'd really like to do with his $1 million champion's check is use it to fund an IROC race at his dirt track, Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.

"I'm more than willing to give the check back just to bring these cars to Eldora," he said. "We'll show them what a dirt race is all about. Hopefully, we'll get something worked out."

Making the move to NASCAR

A shorter, more condensed season for the Indy Racing League and the continued strength of NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series have several top open-wheel stars testing the waters in NASCAR.

Last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway, A.J. Allmendinger, a five-time winner this season on the Champ Car circuit, raced in the Craftsman Truck Series and was entered in the Cup event but didn't get to qualify because of rain on Friday.

Then on Saturday, Sam Hornish Jr., one of the Indy Racing League's top stars, was at the track to announce plans to enter two Busch Series races this year, and more next season.

Hornish, the defending Indy 500 winner and current IRL champion, said he planned to race at Phoenix and Homestead this year and possibly run more NASCAR races in the future.

"You want to see how your versatility is," Hornish said. "There's not a certain particular reason I'm doing this other than just to see if I can and see if I can make a go at it."

He said he still plans to focus in the immediate future on the IRL, where he's the threetime and defending champion, but he added, "Anything could happen in the future."

One open-wheel driver who already has committed to NASCAR, former Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya, finished 11th at Memphis Motorsports Park Saturday in his Busch Series debut.

The underdog comes out on top

Sometimes the little guys still can win a race in one of NASCAR's elite series. David Gilliland did it in a Busch Series race earlier this year at Kentucky Speedway with an upstart team. And at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, Dave Fuge's struggling Craftsman Truck Series entry, with veteran Mike Bliss behind the wheel, won the EasyCare 200.

"[Fuge] has $250,000 set aside to run the rest of the season, and that's getting into his retirement," Bliss said after the race. "He doesn't even know if he's going to be here next year. You've got to give him an 'attaboy.' If I owned this team, I'd quit now."